School
Dinners  Emma Callan
I feel like a pigeon, tottering tentatively into the dining room.
Nothing prepares you for this. The classroom is one thing, new faces,
seats, books, toys. At least in there a kind voice tells me which
seat to take, which face to look at, which thing to touch. Now there
is no voice, just a roar, like the time in that shop when I wandered
in a sea of mums and dads but none of them were mine.

Then Id grabbed
at denim, a denim jacket I thought was mums but wasnt. I remember
thinking then that it should have been hers. She should have been there,
she should be here now.

Here there is no denim, only pink cloth wrapped around an army of dinner
ladies. They all look the same  hair scraped back with clips and
sticky stuff, pursed lips like edges of folded paper, so that the only
movement in their faces is the rapid darting of dark cloudless eyes. My
pigeon feet shuffle further on in the queue of children who - dont
know what a straight line is!

I want to disagree. From my angle were doing a pretty good job,
but to challenge Mrs.Markham, Ive been told, is to take on God herself
and Im way too scared and hungry to argue with anything holy right
now. Im nearing the front with Jack (my brother, if Ive not
mentioned so already), whose hand is squeezing mine tightly.
Over there, quickly. We havent got all day!
This is it, I think to myself; the moment, the rite of passage that every
four year old must go through  finding your own way to a place in
the dinner hall. Jack takes the lead. Jack will look after me. His hand
begins to pull me through the rows of tables carpeted in plates, mushy
carrots and soggy chips. Im glad Ive got a packed lunch. Mum
says packed lunches are healthier, Mrs. Markham says that theyre
for spoilt children who think theyre better than her staffs
cooking. I want to tell her that shes right. That both me and my
brother are better than the mush on the plates that stinks like the inside
of my hamsters cage. Poor Harry, I think. I really must change his saw
dust.
Where do you think you are going?
I stop in my tracks. We both do. As the din around us slowly fades, I
feel unable to move.
Turn around. Now!

Jack tugs at my arm so that Im forced to turn. I do so hesitantly,
with the reluctance of a four year old unwilling to acknowledge an adult
instruction, but with the terror of a private whose sergeant is about
to have him court marshalled. At first she doesnt speak, but I can
read her hatred in those eyes better than my a, b, cs or Letterland.
Why do we need an alphabet when eyes say it all? But the silence is filling
up with questions which she doesnt give us time to answer 
Are we stupid? Does it look like theres seats there? Are we
going to cause this much trouble for her everyday?
Each word is louder and each blast brings more spit.
Where shall we go then miss?
I want to kick Jack, tell him that he should have kept quiet, that she
wasnt asking us real questions. But the heat of her glare solders
my mouth shut and my limbs stone still.
Walk back towards me this instant or you will be sorry. What are
you waiting for you naughty children!? I suddenly realise that the
others were wrong. Mrs. Markham is not God but the devil himself. I remember
now being told at church that he can look like a human and I cant
understand why no one else has made this amazing discovery. Im sure
if I told a priest he could have him, or her (Im slightly confused
as to which it is) exorcised. But Im no priest and at any moment
she/he could launch at me with those devil horns disguised as plaits and
that pitch fork concealed under nylon.